Day one of the consumer-side of PAX (on the west coast, at least). Since last year, I've looked forward to returning to the Indie MEGABOOTH, and it certainly does not disappoint. So large this year that there's even a separate Minibooth within (I'm not kidding). Got to see a whole bunch of Nintendo's upcoming stuff (and a free shirt), plus some Final Fantasy (X/X-2 and XIV) and a handful of others.
Beyond that, I had a great opportunity to talk to the organizer of the MEGABOOTH (after admittedly-creepily stalking her for a short distance); hearing about some of the process to acutally getting into the booth is heartening - especially with the shortened tenures of the Minibooth participants (two days instead of the full four days).
As for the MEGABOOTH itself, I had my first experience with the Oculus Rift, in a side-scrolling beat-em-up, of all things. I am entirely sold on its viability as an output / display device, and will be doing everything in my power to obtain a dev kit. There's tons of potential outside the obvious first-person applications, and the sooner we can leverage that, as an industry...the better off everything will be.
Tomorrow will be walking around the MEGABOOTH even more, plus wandering about some of the next-gen console areas to get a feel as to the viability of those platforms. I am exhausted from everything, but in the best of ways.
